LONDON (Reuters), Feb 6 - European countries should band together to fight cancer to help cut the soaring costs of treating an aging population increasingly prone to the disease, a European Union report said on Tuesday.
A systemic approach is critical because the number of Europeans diagnosed with cancer each year will rise 20% by 2020 due to a growing and aging population, the report said. Last year 2.3 million people were diagnosed with cancer.
"The biggest risk factor for getting cancer is how old you are," Karol Sikora, medical director of Cancer Partners UK, told a news conference. "Europe is aging, and aging very rapidly -- and that is presenting huge challenges because the costs of treating cancer are rapidly increasing," he said.
Cancer experts from across Europe contributed to the report, which EU health ministers will discuss in Ljubljana this week as Slovenia uses its European Union presidency to highlight the disease that kills 1.7 million people each year in the region.
Tackling cancer in a more uniform manner would also help narrow wide health gaps in Europe in terms of the number of people who die from, and are diagnosed with, cancer, according to the report.
Coordinating prevention, screening and treatment efforts could involve patient-centred Europe-wide research, national cancer registries in more countries and European centres aimed at improving the treatment of rare cancers, the report said.
"There is no question we could learn lessons from other countries in how to treat cancer patients," said Michel Coleman, a cancer researcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who worked on the report.
Varying cancer rates reflect a number of factors including differing lifestyles, diets, and prevention and screening programs across Europe, the report said.
For example, Hungary has the highest overall cancer rate in the European Union due to a large number of lung cancer cases in a country with a lot of smokers. Southern European countries where people follow a Mediterranean diet rich in fruits and vegetables have some of the lowest cancer rates.
A large number of breast cancer cases make Denmark and Iceland the countries with the highest cancer rates among women while southern European countries were the lowest.
By Michael Kahn
Last Updated: 2008-02-05 13:33:46 -0400 (Reuters Health)
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